In the first of our club updates from last week’s EFL AGM, chief executive Nigel Clibbens talks about how the club voted on the removal of extra time from the Carabao Cup, the return to the standard ABAB format of penalties and the removal of seeding in the early rounds from the same competition.
“We voted in favour of removing extra time because we felt that it should help to make the games more exciting,” he explained. “We think that teams take fewer risks as the second half goes on in these games at the moment, because they know they have the buffer of another 30 minutes to play.
“It’s another of those situations where it’s more than worth giving something which is different a try. Teams will now go into these fixtures knowing that they have 90 minutes to get the job done, or it’s straight to penalties. Hopefully this will lead to fewer stalemates and more of an attack minded approach during the second half.”
“In terms of the removal of seeding during the first two rounds, we feel this will lead to a fairer system where every team will have a better chance of progression,” he commented. “That can only be a good thing and, again, it should increase interest and excitement.
“We’ve seen in our recent past how quickly this competition can gather pace when you do progress, with games against the likes of Sunderland, Derby, QPR and Liverpool, so the removal of the seeding system could lead to more opportunities of that being the case.
“For the penalties, we voted to continue the trial of the ABBA format. Statistics show that the team going first in the standard ABAB format tends to get the advantage. We were all for continuing that trial, but the overall feeling was to revert to the usual way of doing it.”
“Part of the discussion on cup competitions included a sharing of views on the Checkatrade Trophy,” he concluded. “There was no vote at this stage, so we’ll have more to report on this once the next EFL meeting has taken place in September.
“Issues such as perception, attendances and format were raised, so a formal proposal will now be put forward for further discussion. I will, of course, keep you updated on that as it develops.”
We'll have more on how and why we voted on other issues raised at last week's EFL AGM as we go through this week.
